In brief

  • Head teachers and inspectors partly relieved of their teaching load can no longer teach more than 40% of a full load, and those in the school inspectorates no more than 30%. Until now there was no ceiling at all.
  • Anyone who has been relieved can no longer teach on an hourly-paid basis or by holding a second post, with one exception: schools in geographically and linguistically isolated areas, with the approval of the inspectorate’s board.
  • The reorganisation of state nurseries and their attachment to schools is postponed to 1 September 2027.
Act: Law no. 182/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 723 of 28 August 2026
In force from: 31 August 2026

Four days before the school year starts, Parliament puts a ceiling on how much a head teacher relieved of teaching duties may still teach, and postpones by a year the move of state nurseries into schools. Law no. 182/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 723 of 28 August 2026 and promulgated by Decree no. 735/2026, amends Article 208 of Law no. 198/2023 on pre-university education a day after the Ministry of Education had published the order approving the very rules on relieving head teachers of their teaching load.

The act has four articles. The first rewrites the rule on relief from teaching duties, the second postpones a deadline in the education law, the third repeals an article of a fiscal and budgetary law, and the fourth sets the date of entry into force, by way of derogation from the education law’s own rule.

Relief from the teaching load means that a head teacher, an inspector or another member of staff in a management, guidance or supervisory post teaches less than a full load, so as to have time for administration. Until now, the law said only that the relief could be full or partial, on the basis of rules approved by ministerial order. How much teaching was actually left was written nowhere in the law.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is the ceiling. The teaching, learning and assessment load, the practical instruction and the current assessment carried out by a person partly relieved of duties cannot exceed 40% of the load provided for in Article 207(4), or 30% in the case of management staff in the school inspectorates. Fractions of an hour resulting from applying those percentages are rounded down to the full hour.

The second effect is the ban on extra teaching. The new paragraph (11^1) says that teaching staff who have been relieved of duties may not carry out teaching activities remunerated on an hourly-paid basis or through holding a second post. This is a new rule, one that did not exist in the 2023 wording.

The third effect is the exception that goes with it. Under paragraph (11^2), hourly-paid activities may nonetheless be approved in pre-university education units in geographically and linguistically isolated areas, with the approval of the board of the county school inspectorate.

The fourth effect concerns union leaders. Persons designated by the representative union federations, who take part in monitoring and assessing the quality of the education system, are entitled to the same relief from teaching duties, and their tasks are set by the same ministerial order. Whether the 40% ceiling applies to them as well, the text does not say: the sentence that fixes the percentage is written for management, guidance and supervisory staff, while the one that concerns them grants only „același drept”, the same right.

The fifth effect has nothing to do with teaching loads. Article II postpones to 1 September 2027 the deadline in Article 248(23) of Law no. 198/2023, which required state nurseries with legal personality to be reorganised and attached, within three school years of the law entering into force, to education units with an extended-hours pre-school level. The exception for nurseries with at least 120 children under pre-school age, which may be reorganised as units with legal personality, remains.

The sixth effect is a repeal: Article LIX of Law no. 141/2025 on certain fiscal and budgetary measures disappears.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Comparing the two wordings shows exactly what has been added. The old Article 208(11) already provided for full or partial relief, on the basis of rules approved by ministerial order and drawn up in consultation with the representative union federations, and it was the same text that extended the right to the persons designated by those federations. What it did not contain was any figure at all: no ceiling, no rounding rule, no ban on holding a second post.

The new text keeps the old sentence and adds exactly three things: the ceiling of 40%, or 30%, the rule rounding fractions of an hour down, and the two new paragraphs on hourly-paid teaching. That is all.

The nursery calendar has changed too. Law no. 198/2023 entered into force 60 days after its publication on 5 July 2023, so in September 2023, and the three-school-year deadline expired at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. The postponement moves the line to 1 September 2027, that is, by one more full school year.

Finally, the moment of entry into force has changed. Article 10(2) of Law no. 198/2023 provides that any amendment to that law takes effect from the first day of the school year following the one in which it was adopted, except in a state of alert, emergency or siege. Article IV of the new law derogates expressly from that rule and sets entry into force at 3 days from publication.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • How much a relieved head teacher actually teaches no longer depends on a ministerial order but is written in the law, with a percentage and a rounding rule.
  • The ban on hourly-paid teaching closes a gap through which relief from duties could be followed by extra hours paid separately.
  • The exception for geographically and linguistically isolated areas recognises that in some schools there is nobody else to teach.
  • Postponing the reorganisation of the nurseries avoids an administrative move right at the start of the school year, in a system that was not ready for it.
  • Fractions of an hour are rounded down, so the ceiling cannot be exceeded through rounding.

What remains a problem

  • The law enters into force on 31 August, while the ministerial order approving the rules on relief from duties had been published on 27 August, under the old rule, with no ceiling and no ban on holding a second post.
  • The ceiling applies from the start of the school year, so staffing arrangements already made over the summer have to be redone in a matter of days.
  • The exception for isolated areas has no criteria: the law does not say what geographically and linguistically isolated means, and the decision is left to the inspectorate’s board.
  • The reorganisation of the nurseries is postponed for a second time, without the law saying what it was that did not work over the three school years.
  • The repeal of Article LIX of Law no. 141/2025 comes with no explanation in the published text.

Practical advice

  1. Head teachers and deputy head teachers: check your staffing arrangement for the 2026-2027 school year. If you have been partly relieved of duties, your teaching hours cannot exceed 40% of the load in Article 207(4), and fractions are rounded down.
  2. Management staff in the school inspectorates: the ceiling is 30%, not 40%.
  3. If you have been relieved of duties and had hourly-paid hours or a second post lined up for the school year that is starting, give them up. The ban in paragraph (11^1) applies from 31 August 2026.
  4. If you teach in a school in a geographically and linguistically isolated area, ask for the approval of the county school inspectorate’s board before you start the hourly-paid hours. Without that approval, the exception does not operate.
  5. Management of state nurseries with legal personality: reorganisation and attachment to an education unit are no longer compulsory this school year. The deadline is 1 September 2027.
  6. Watch for the publication of an updated ministerial order. The one of 27 August 2026 was issued under the old wording of Article 208(11) and cannot contain either the ceiling or the ban on holding a second post.

Frequently asked questions

How much may a partly relieved head teacher still teach?
At most 40% of the teaching load provided for in Article 207(4) of Law no. 198/2023. For management staff in the school inspectorates the limit is 30%. Fractions of an hour are rounded down to the full hour.
Can I still take hourly-paid hours if I have been relieved of duties?
No, as a rule. Paragraph (11^1) prohibits teaching activities remunerated on an hourly-paid basis or through holding a second post. The exception covers only units in geographically and linguistically isolated areas, with the approval of the board of the county school inspectorate.
From when does the ceiling apply?
From 31 August 2026. Article IV derogates from the usual rule of the education law, which would have postponed application until the start of the following school year, and sets entry into force at 3 days from publication.
What happens to the state nurseries?
Their reorganisation and attachment to education units with legal personality is postponed to 1 September 2027. Nurseries with at least 120 children under pre-school age may be reorganised as education units with legal personality, as before.
Do the union representatives designated for quality assessment come under the same ceiling?
The text does not say clearly. The sentence that fixes the 40% ceiling refers to management, guidance and supervisory teaching staff partly relieved of duties, while the following sentence grants the persons designated by the federations „același drept”, the same right, without repeating the percentage. Their tasks are set by the same order of the minister of education and research.
Is the ministerial order of 27 August still valid?
It remains in force until it is amended, but it cannot contain the ceiling and the ban introduced the following day by law. Rules approved by order apply only within the limits of the law, so any part that would go beyond 40%, or 30%, can no longer be put into practice.

Editorial analysis

The law solves an old and real problem. Since 2023, relief from the teaching load had been a formula without a figure: the law said it could be full or partial, and how much teaching was left was settled by ministerial order. The result was an uneven practice, in which two head teachers of comparable schools could carry very different loads. A percentage written into the law, with a rounding rule, ends the argument.

What does not show when you read the law from start to finish appears when you put its date next to the date of the order it affects. On 27 August 2026, in Official Gazette of Romania no. 714, the Ministry of Education published the order approving the rules on relieving head teachers of their teaching load. The next day, on 28 August, Parliament changed the very basis of that order, adding a 40% ceiling and a ban on holding a second post that the order could not possibly contain. The law enters into force on 31 August, so the order has four days of existence under the old rule and will have to be redone before the school year actually begins. This is exactly the kind of mismatch produced when the executive and the legislature work in parallel on the same text in the last week of August.

The second observation concerns the derogation in Article IV. Article 10(2) of Law no. 198/2023 postpones any amendment until the start of the following school year, „cu excepția stării de alertă, urgență sau asediu”, except in a state of alert, emergency or siege. On the date of publication Romania was under a nationwide state of alert, declared by CNSU Decision no. 15/2026 and extended on 28 August, the same day, until 28 September. The exception is drafted without distinguishing according to the subject matter of the state of alert, so the express derogation in Article IV appears to have been, at least in part, unnecessary.

The third concerns the postponement for the nurseries. The deadline in Article 248(23) ran from September 2023 and expired with the 2025-2026 school year. The postponement moves it to 1 September 2027, that is, four school years from the law’s entry into force instead of three. The law does not say how many nurseries managed to reorganise, how many did not, and why. Without that figure, the postponement looks like an administrative delay rather than a correction.

What should be changed

  • A deadline for the updated ministerial order. The law changes the basis of an order published the day before but does not say by when it has to be redone, even though the school year starts in a matter of days.
  • Criteria for a geographically and linguistically isolated area. The exception to the ban on holding a second post is useful, but without criteria it will be applied differently from one inspectorate to another, which is precisely the problem the 40% ceiling solves everywhere else.
  • Publication of the state of the nurseries at the date of the postponement. How many were attached, how many were not and for what reasons. Without that figure there is no way of knowing whether one more year solves anything.
  • A transitional rule for staffing arrangements already made. The ceiling applies from 31 August, while staffing for the school year is settled in August; a clause saying explicitly what happens to arrangements already approved would avoid the challenges that will come in September.
  • Reasons for repealing Article LIX of Law no. 141/2025. An article of a fiscal and budgetary law disappears without the published text saying what effect it had, which makes it impossible for the reader to judge the consequence.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 723 of 28 August 2026 16 pages PDF, 119 KB the act starts on page 11

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.